Are we giving up on our urban orchards?

There are 456 million hectares of urban agricultural farms in and around cities in the world. This is an area as large as the European Union. About 67 million hectares of that number are inside cities, and the remaining surround to cities.  

In other words, cities are becoming significant centers of food production everywhere in the world. Researcher Pay Drecsel, a scientist at the International Water Management Institute, said urban farming decreased emissions in developed countries and contributed to green economy, but what's hip and green in rich nations is viewed as backwards in poorer ones - "an inconvenient vestige of rural life that stands in the way of modernization."

"That's an attitude that needs to change," Drechsel said in a statement (Stanford Woods, Nov. 2014).
Urban farming opens unused plots to agriculture, prevents floods, provides livelihood for the poor and protects the biodiversity in cities. Extremely nourishing products such as fresh vegetables are grown in urban areas.

In developed countries, small-scale urban farms are seen as the antidote to industrial agriculture, which pollutes water ways with chemical fertilizers and inflicts both physical and environmental damage. 

On the rooftops of skyscrapers in New York, vegetables are grown, beekeeping is done. The honey of these bees is served at breakfast tables at the hotels. 

In Havana, Kinshasa, Hanoi, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit and Atlanta, people are growing fruits and vegetables on window sills, roofs and shared gardens. In 2008, $4.9 million worth of summer vegetables were grown in 226 publicly shared gardens in Philadelphia.

In the low-income neighborhood of Camden, New Jersey, which has only one supermarket, residents have...